"
The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast;
and Massinger, in his "City Madam," gives some idea of the
extravagance with which this, as well as other dishes, was
prepared for the gorgeous revels of the olden times:
Men may talk of Country Christmasses,
Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues;
Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris: the carcases of three
fat wethers bruised for gravy to make sauce for a single peacock!
It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not
have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which I
am a little given, were I to mention the other makeshifts or this
worthy old humorist, by which he was endeavoring to follow up,
though at humble distance, the quaint customs of antiquity. I was
pleased, however, to see the respect shown to his whims by his
children and relatives; who, indeed, entered readily into the
full spirit of them, and seemed all well versed in their parts,
having doubtless been present at many a rehearsal. I was amused,
too, at the air of profound gravity with which the butler and
other servants executed the duties assigned them, however
eccentric. They had an old-fashioned look, having, for the most
part, been brought up in the household and grown into keeping
with the antiquated mansion and the humors of its lord, and most
probably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the
established laws of honorable housekeeping.
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